Lottery bid progress and plans for Alina’s Chapel

A meeting was held this week to give an update on progress with the planned conservation and resortation work, the fundings bids, and plans for the new visitor centre – “Alina’s Chapel”.

The meeting was well attended by the Friends as well as representatives from the City and County of Swansea, The Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust, Davis Sutton architects and other local organisations including the Mumbles Community Council, Mumble Development Trust and the Gower Society.

A brief history of works at the castle started the meeting, it was pointed out that the last major conservation work was 150 years ago!

Funding for the current project comes by a number of sources including Lottery, Cadw, City and County of Swansea and Convergence Funding.

An update on the current project was given, the next step of which is getting the plans submitted and approved, which needs to be in place by September.

If all goes to plan then work will begin in April of 2010 and run for a planned 4 years. The reason for the staged progress is to allow the castle to remain open during the works.

An overview of the plans included:

An extensive repointing programme for the walls

Making safe and reopening a number of areas currently fenced off including the cellars

General improvements to the access and footpaths

A new footpath to allow an easier gradient for disabled access up the hill

Removal of the old “huts” and replacement with a flagged area.

There is also funding available for “interpretation” and a questionnaire was distributed to gather some ideas of what this might entail — more comments are always welcome!

The plans for the new visitor centre itself were on display and available for comment. The main features included:

Two “pods” on the ground floor to be used as a shop/ticketing area, and a matching workshop area for activities and displays. These would be built primarily of light materials such as glass and copper to keep as much light in the area as possible, and would be positioned either side of the large, originalfireplace.

The spiral staircase would be repaired and reopened and the first floor would have a wooden walkway installed around the edge to allow viewing of the this level.

The second floor (the original chapel level) would have a central glazed walkway and a viewing area to look out through the tracery window across the bay.

All very exciting!

An update was also given on the planned community archaeology taking place over the summer.

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[…] end of August. Due to conservation and restoration over the winter, including work on the new visitor centre, the castle will be closed to the public from the end of August. It will re open Easter next year, […]

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For more information about the castle including current opening times and prices, news and events, and the recent and ongoing conservation work try the Oystermouth Castle page on the City and County of Swansea website